'If 99.99 per cent of these micro borrowers are good at repaying their loans, why can't we look at the SMEs and MSMEs and replicate the same model for them with our stringent risk management system,' Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, chairman and managing director of India's newest private sector bank, tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com.

The BJP government is no better than the Congress -- as wretched and anti-people. In addition, it is explicitly and aggressively communal, says Venkatesh B Athreya, in a hard-hitting interview to Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com.

The biggest achievement of the Modi government in the past one year was it could bring positivity in the minds of people and industry, says V P Nandakumar, executive chairman of the Manappuram Finance Ltd, in an interview to Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com.

C K Ranganathan, CMD of the $12.50 billion CavinKare, in an interview with Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com, says though he sees signs of improvement everywhere, the Modi government has a long way to go to make the country business friendly

Pranjul Bhandari, Chief India Economist, HSBC, speaks about a range of issues ranging from inflation, to how Goods and Services Tax and land acquisition bills can help India hit double digit growth, and her impressions about economic growth in the last one year after Narendra Modi took over as India's Prime Minister.

'It is a national shame that the only country that enacted a food security act is now better known as the land of farmer suicides. Indian farming can change only if national irrigation policy is implemented in totality,' Dr M S Swaminathan tells Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com

In the second and final part of this interview, energy and coal industry expert Sunjoy Joshi tells Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com that we need to take a comprehensive view of the entire energy sector and how piecemeal reform won't take us very far.

In his first interview after taking over as Philips India's vice-chairman and managing director, Krishna Kumar speaks to Business Standard on how the company is readying itself for the next few decades and the increasing importance of India to Philips' global operations.

Phee Teik Yeoh, the recently anointed chief executive officer of the airline, speaks to Business Standard on his aim of changing the rule of the game in the aviation sector by redefining service and operational experience for travellers accustomed to mere functionality.

Anybody who is saying that in five years the Sensex will go to 60,000 is only saying that in the next five, years the Sensex will generate a CAGR of around 19 per cent, says U R Bhat, managing director of Dalton Capital Advisors.

Rajeev Mehta says the slow beginning in North America was primarily on account of some health care clients, evaluating the impact of the Affordable Care Act before deciding on their technology spending.

Gautam Adani, head of the Rs 45,000-crore Adani group that is in the midst of a controversy, with the Congress party charging the BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi with showing special favours to them speaks to CNN-IBN.

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries will take a call on whether to shut Ranbaxy's troubled factories or make changes in the top management of the latter only after its $4-billion acquisition deal is complete.

Our ways of working lack innovation and our thinking is bureaucratic. Policy paralysis will continue, Mudit Jain, executive director of DCW, told Rediff.com's in an exclusive interview on the Indian economy.

'I will not bog down with the setbacks. I am going to republish the book. All the copyrights rest with me,' former executive director of Air India Jitendra Bhargave tells about Praful Patel's pressure to withdraw his book.

People who advocate a rate hike because inflation is very high, even without the food component, have in mind some developed-economy structure, Raghuram Rajan tells Business Standard in an exclusive interview.

Bhavtosh Vajpayee, managing director and head of the Indian equities business at Barclays, the London-headquartered multinational banking and financial services company, tells Business Standard it is still too early to predict an economic recovery.

"Our objective of venturing into different sections of housing is to provide luxury at affordable prices and ensure quality living for all," says Ram Raheja, director and head, Architecture & Design, S Raheja Realty.

The best way to put the economy back on track is to abolish income and corporate taxes, as this will not only raise confidence but also increase savings and boost growth, the Bharatiya Janata Party's Subramanian Swamy tells Faisal Kidwai.

The disparity between the outlook of the rich and poor was greater in India than in any other emerging economy. Indians might want to be worried about this because this suggests that the rich are really out of touch with the poor, Bruce Stoke, Director of Pew Research Center, tells Faisal Kidwai in an interview.

Shiv Nadar, the first-generation information technology entrepreneur, founder and chairman of the HCL Group, has announced an additional Rs 3,000-crore investment over the next five years towards the educational initiatives of his corporate social responsibility entity, the Shiv Nadar Foundation.

Within a week of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India giving its final recommendations on the valuation and pricing of spectrum, Chairman Rahul Khullar speaks to Business Standard on the process the regulator followed in finalising the much-debated issue.

As the chairperson of SKS Trust, the largest shareholder in SKS Microfinance, Biksham Gujja created a stir by announcing they wanted to nominate Vikram Akula, the ousted boss who had founded the company the latter founded, as its representative on the board.

The stock and foreign exchange markets have had a negative reaction to the government's biggest social security programme, the National Food Security Bill. Food minister K V Thomas questions the rationale behind such a response

A healthy track record and 17 years of experience in financial services would be the key strengths of Edelweiss Financial Services in setting up a bank, says chairman and chief executive officer Rashesh Shah, in an interview with Business Standard.

The recently anointed managing director and chief executive officer at Maruti Suzuki India Ltd tells Business Standard how he intends to get back to over 50 per cent share in the domestic market, apart from a larger role in the parent's global operations.

Days after low-cost carrier AirAsia announced it would launch its India operations by the end of the year, IndiGo Airlines President Aditya Ghosh, 38, tells Sudipto Dey in an interaction why his airline is not one that should be worried.

Nobutaka Kitajima, chief investment officer -- equity, LIC Nomura Mutual Fund, tells Business Standard the reaction to the Fed's statements has been overdone and the current downturn has punished certain stocks much more than their inherent economic worth and business potential.

C Rangarajan, chairman, Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council tells Business Standard that the measures taken by the government will lead to economic growth of at least 6 per cent in FY14 against a decadal-low growth of 5 per cent in FY13.

Unless Murthy launches an aggressive search for a significant infusion of new blood, he will find it difficult to implement the dramatic changes to Infosys' fortunes that everyone expects him to, says P R Ganapathy.

Polaris Financial Technology Ltd , the Chennai-based information technology major which provides products, solutions and services for the financial services sector, has appointed five CEOs, one for for each distinct line of business.

Surjit Bhalla believes that RBI is the only central bank in the world that formed its monetary policy on the basis of the current account deficit. He also feels that the Chidambaram proposed women's bank in Budget to impress Sonia Gandhi.

Admitting there were challenges before the economy, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said at a post-Budget media conference that another set of decisions and measures would be announced during the Budget's passage in Parliament.

According to Paris-based RECMA, GroupM controls over 40 per cent of the Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion) that marketers spent on print, TV, and other mass media and below-the-line activities, in India.

It is not as if the political class is unaware of the magnitude of the issues India faces. The disconnect is in the politician's belief that it is enough to manage the outrage to get re-elected, that electoral sops rather than long-term solutions is the road to sustain power, says Shankkar Aiyar, author of Accidental India: A History of the Nation's Passage through Crisis and Change.

Mobile commerce is on the cusp of taking off in India and the growth curve would be a hockey stick shaped one, says Shubhradeep Guha, Global Capability Lead and Country Manager, SapientNitro (India), an integrated marketing, commerce and technology services firm, part of the $1.02billion Boston-based Sapient Corporation (2011).

'What he has done has really been to give his time to go outside India, to reach out to governments, important countries, to meet world leaders. And I am sure when he is meeting them, he is not only presenting a Tata group message, he is presenting an India message. Therefore, he has become a kind of quasi-ambassador for us which is, of course, why the government values and respects him so much as well.' Top corporate lawyer Zia Mody assesses Ratan Tata's legacy.